News

Stanford expansion creates housing quandary

Residents voice concerns about traffic

Stanford University is looking to build up to 2.275 million square feet of academic space and 3,150 housing units/beds by 2035, according to its General Use Permit application. Weekly file photo

Despite concerns about the region's housing shortage, Palo Alto residents showed little enthusiasm Tuesday for the idea of requiring Stanford University to build enough residential units to compensate for its ambitious expansion.

The question of exactly how much housing Stanford should add to complement the 2.275 million square feet of academic space it plans to construct by 2035 is at the center of a new analysis by Santa Clara County, which is now reviewing Stanford's application for a new General Use Permit. The university has proposed 3,150 units or beds as part of its expansion; the new study considers two alternatives that would require a total of 5,699 (in Housing Alternative A) or 4,425 (in Housing Alternative B) units or beds.

The two new proposals are both evaluated in the recently recirculated Draft Environmental Impact Report, which was the subject of a meeting on Tuesday at the Palo Alto Art Center. More than 50 residents attended to express their concerns both about Stanford's proposal and the newly released alternatives.

No one at the meeting disputed the idea that Stanford's academic expansion would exacerbate the area's housing crisis. The larger question was: What about the costs of addressing that impact by building enough housing to fully support the larger campus population?

From Stanford's perspective, the new study underscores its view that adding even more housing than it has proposed would bring more traffic to the surrounding area. Jessica von Borck, the university's director of land use and planning, said that the university's application is designed to continue the balance of land uses that has occurred in the past.

The two new housing alternatives, by contrast, are "inconsistent with Stanford's balanced plans for its campus" and would significantly affect surrounding communities.

Her view received some support from the new study, which indicated that traffic at several local intersections -- some of which would have "failing" congestion levels under Stanford's version of the expansion -- would not see any improvement if the additional housing were built. Two new intersections -- Stanford Avenue and Bowdoin Street; and Middlefield and Charleston Road -- would now face "significant and unavoidable" impacts, according to the draft environmental analysis.

The draft report indicated that Housing Alternative A would bring in an additional 2,100 trips by residents during the morning and evening commutes, even as it would reduce the number of commuter trips by about 700.

Lesley Lowe, senior environmental planner at Stanford, noted at the meeting that the university already has in place an ambitious transportation-demand-management program, which has resulted in only 43 percent of the campus population commuting alone by car. Stanford believes it can offset some of the new car trips by enticing even more Stanford commuters to get out of their cars. It is less confident, however, that it can achieve its "no net new commute trip" standard under the newly evaluated housing alternatives.

Former Palo Alto Mayor Pat Burt concurred that getting people who live on campus to not drive would require new approaches. This could include better coordination between the university's Marguerite shuttles and Palo Alto's free-shuttle system, he said.

"Those are different programs needed to reduce or fully mitigate these trips," Burt said. "That doesn't mean it cannot be done. They're different measures that require different programs and will require a significant investment on behalf of Stanford to achieve that."

Some residents argued that Stanford's proposal, even without the additional housing, is already too much. Suzanne Keehn, member of the citizens group Palo Altans for Sensible Zoning, was one of several speakers to argue that the planned expansion represents far more growth than surrounding communities can accommodate.

"This area can only hold so many people comfortably and have some kind of livability," Keehn said.

Todd Collins, a member of the Palo Alto Unified Board of Education, highlighted another area of concern: the impact of new housing on local schools. Collins noted that because Stanford's rental properties are tax-exempt, the school district doesn't get any property-tax revenues from the university. Collins said that absorbing the estimated 275 new students who would move in under Stanford's permit plan would constitute an annual school-district expenditure of $5.3 million, without any revenues to offset the cost.

Collins said that with Housing Alternative A, which would bring 1,500 students to the school district, Palo Alto Unified would see $27.8 million in annual unfunded costs.

"This is a huge issue," Collins said. "It has the potential to undermine the quality of schools that the community is based on."

The county is accepting comments on the proposed Draft Environmental Impact Report until July 26. The deadline has some significance for the Palo Alto City Council, which is on break until July 30 and which was hoping to get an extension so that it might discuss its comment letter. When asked by Councilwoman Karen Holman about the potential extension, Geoff Bradley, project planner for the Stanford general-use permit, said that the county decided to stick to the July 26 deadline so that county staff would have plenty of time to address the comments.

This means city staff will draft the letter based on somewhat conflicting directions it had received from the council in June. Councilmen Adrian Fine and Cory Wolbach both said they would like to see Stanford move ahead with one of the new Housing Alternatives, particularly given the university's strong history of handling its traffic. But Holman and Mayor Liz Kniss both raised concerns about the prospect of building 100-foot-tall residential buildings on El Camino Real to meet the housing requirement.

The county plans to issue a final Environmental Impact Report, with responses to public comments, in September. The county's Planning Commission is looking to hold hearings on the General Use Permit in October and November. The issue will then go to the Board of Supervisors, with the goal of reaching a decision by the end of the year, Bradley said.

Comments on the recirculated portions of the Draft Environmental Impact Report should be addressed to: David Rader, 70 W. Hedding St., San Jose, CA 95110, daved.rader@pln.sccgov.org.

I really hope the school district impact is greatly exaggerated. Doesn't seem fair or reasonable to add hundreds to a thousand new students to the school district without them paying their share through property tax contributions. Where is that new money supposed to come from?

Posted by Resident
a resident of Community Center
on Jul 11, 2018 at 12:17 am

@Dan, it's for real. When Stanford owns property and rents it to its employees, they don't pay property taxes. They went through this last year in Menlo Park, where Stanford is paying them for anticipated new kids: Web Link

"The provision for the local schools [in Menlo Park] is tied to the fact that Stanford plans to rent the 215 apartments to university faculty and staff, which means the university won't pay property taxes on the apartments. But children living in the apartments may go to the district's schools, which depend on property taxes for their operation."

The Stanford GUP plan calls for hundreds of new PAUSD students - at least 300, up to almost 1500 more, all from high-density, multi-family rental properties. Those would all be tax-exempt. This could be a huge problem.

Posted by Stop Destroying Our City
a resident of Crescent Park
on Jul 11, 2018 at 5:25 am

Stanford's growth plans are too ambitious.

The City of Palo Alto has actually acknowledged that Stanford's claims it has kept traffic down are implausible. Stanford's counts don't include cars that drop people off. Stanford doesn't count people who park across El Camino from Stanford. And Stanford has invented other ways to lower the counts artificially too. Meanwhile, our traffic keeps getting worse.

Stanford simply doesn't care if it causes extra traffic, housing shortages, underfunded schools, and overparked neighborhoods. Until it truly solves these problems, we should have have a simple answer when it wants to make things worse: No!

Posted by Anon
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jul 11, 2018 at 7:37 am

Stanford, its hospital(s), its shopping center, its industrial park, can be considered as a big business enterprise. There are pluses and minuses associated with this enterprise, such as sales tax generated by the shopping center, and so on.

The biggest impact to me, personally, is the same impact as HP/HPE, Google and Facebook in neighboring cities, Palantir, and all the rest-- traffic. I imagine the impact of a few hundred students in the schools is going to be pretty small compared to the impact of the traffic.

If there is one thing that I personally want Stanford to work on, it is in reducing traffic.

Posted by Bill Bucy
a resident of Barron Park
on Jul 11, 2018 at 8:58 amBill Bucy is a registered user.

Re schools:

Let's calculate the property tax that would be paid for the housing were it developed privately. Then, let's calculate the portion of that figure that would go to finance schools and make it a fee paid upfront by Stanford in return for permission to build. Given that I'm not the sharpest pencil in the drawer I have to believe such a system must be in place somewhere so it can be vetted.

Posted by Annette
a resident of College Terrace
on Jul 11, 2018 at 11:03 amAnnette is a registered user.

I am ready to hear our leaders and planners specify what the end game is. How do they define "more"? Between what the university plans to do and what the City needs to do, where are we going? A 20% population increase? 50%? Higher?

What capacity is left in our various infrastructure elements? Asked differently, how many more structures and people can our water supply, water treatment system, sewage system, utility grid, land fill, hospitals, public safety personnel, roads, public transportation, schools, etc. support without breaking down completely? I rather doubt people will continue to clamor to live here if the area is a dysfunctional mess of a place to live.

I am very concerned that the rallying cry around housing is focused only on housing and not on infrastructure. It is irresponsible - and misleading - to talk about the cost of housing w/o including financial projections about the cost of whatever else needs to be improved, augmented, or added to support the new housing.

Posted by Annette
a resident of College Terrace
on Jul 11, 2018 at 11:44 amAnnette is a registered user.

Current population of Palo Alto is ~66,649 per the City's website. If Fine and Wolbach are pushing for an additional 10,000 housing units in Palo Alto, they are pushing for a 15% population increase if only 1 person resides in each of those units or a 30% population increase if 2 people occupy each of those units. For discussion, let's average the two numbers.

Parents, teachers and PAUSD: can the existing schools absorb another 22.5% students?

PAFD and PAPD: can you provide public safety for a community that is 22.5% larger?

Utilities Dept: can our utilities support the increase in demand that accompanies a 22.5% population growth?

Commuters and other drivers: what will a population increase of 22.5% look like on the 101? 280? Surface streets?

Stanford Hospital and PAMF: do you have the capacity to support a population that is 22.5% larger than our current population?

Sacramento and ABAG and other governmental entities impose numbers on us that result in constant cries for more housing, with what appears to be a focus on the needs of people who do NOT live here (and other cities in the cross hairs) rather than on the needs of those who DO live in the targeted cities. And our Council majority supports adding more and more office development that swells our daytime population and increases the demand for housing.

Something's gotta give somewhere. I think the reasonable needs and requirements of the existing community should not be ignored and that housing should take priority over office/r&d development. Apparently it is naïve to expect our City Council majority to act in support of these two things. Vote carefully in November.

Posted by Gale Johnson
a resident of Adobe-Meadow
on Jul 11, 2018 at 1:07 pm

Annette always asks hard questions that I don't think CC members have even begun to think about. Well, if they have they certainly haven't offered up any good answers to them. Schools and infrastructure are just two of them. We wallow in traffic and all we hear about as a solution is people walking and biking to work. From Fremont, Tracy, Morgan Hill?

No, of course not. We will build enough housing units (underparked) so they can all live here. There are a few fuzzy headed thinkers who project themselves as being the enlightened ones who can solve all our problems, when their track record, so far, is pretty dismal. But campaign season is coming up and so they will put a big positive spin on things, like ADU's being a great success story, the BP being approved for 57 units of "affordable?" housing at the old VTA site. I doubt any of them will be inhabited this year. So, one year in and we'll most likely be at least 200 units short out of the gate.
Bike boulevards, of course, another great success. And they will always fall back on BV as the hallmark of what can been done (at a very high cost) to save "really" affordable, not "affordable" housing. That's history and so let's hear about the next big chance to add the same number of "really" affordable units in PA.

You want to ask a question that will get a lot of smooth talking, flim flam skirting answers? Ask how the quality of life for us long time residents has been improved or how they propose to improve it. Let's face it, we are the forgotten ones. CC members and future members will give first priority to the millennials because they know they are the future voters of PA who can keep them in office with all the promises they make.

Incumbents and those seeking office will say just about anything, or at least enough, to mollify us older voting residents. Speaking for myself, I'm becoming more easily mollified. I'm too old to carry pitchforks and torches, or be a marching bsnner waving activist, and CC meetings go past my bedtime before issues I'm interested in come up. My best years as a PA resident are behind me. The memories remain, however, and they are grand!!

Posted by Get to the source of the problem!
a resident of Midtown
on Jul 11, 2018 at 1:08 pmGet to the source of the problem! is a registered user.

Don't lose sight of the fact that Stanford's academic growth proposal creates major demand for more housing whether they build it themselves or not. (If they don't build it themselves, either those folks will have to commute (even more traffic) or taxpayers have to build it (more corporate subsidies)).

The key take away from the county's new analysis is that EITHER way, the newly created housing demand will be painful to supply, worsen traffic and burden public services (schools, water, safety). It will have a huge impact on Palo Alto.

We'll never be able to correct our jobs housing imbalance as long as we keep creating new housing demand faster than we can build supply and infrastructure to service it. When will elected officials stop pretending that building new housing, alone, can solve this crisis? They owe it to constituents (voters) to get to the source of the problem!

Posted by Stephen
a resident of Duveneck/St. Francis
on Jul 11, 2018 at 2:09 pm

First off, I think it is fair that Stanford, like anyone else, pay property taxes on residential properties. Note that it does pay property taxes on Stanford West rental properties. Moreover, all of the faculty housing on campus is also subject to regular property taxes as are businesses in the Industrial Park.

However, the issue thoughtfully raised on the earlier, similar thread by Resident (Adobe Meadows) is that nobody's residential property taxes likely comes close to covering the per child education cost - $18,000/year (about 170% of the State average). This would require ca. $54,000/year property tax per child which is currently about $4M of assessed property value per child. Rental housing that is held by the owner for long periods of time exacerbate this problem - as Resident notes, the current assessed value of Stanford West (built in 2000) is ca. $100M (2000 valuation plus Prop 13's limited annual growth) and so only about $500,000 of property tax. For example, people in the Duveneck area like ourselves who bought in the late 1990s early 2000s likely have been paying about $4,000/year to PAUSD, so in our case, with 2 kids, someone was subsidizing us to the tune of $25,000/year while our kids were in school. The property taxes for the school board member up the street from us who also had several kids in PAUSD schools are about half of ours, so received an even larger subsidy.

Thus, the central issue is that any new housing that is created (e.g. in response to the Grand Jury or ABAG, or as part of the GUP) will require somebody to subsidize the cost to PAUSD of those new students or will necessarily reduce per child spending by PAUSD. I suspect that creating some form of payment tied to housing units as Burt and Collins suggest will make it really tough to add any housing, other than very, very expensive housing, to the local housing stock. This calculation also explains why adding businesses and offices might be far more attractive to PAUSD than is housing since the former increases property tax revenue while not increasing student numbers.

Posted by No to Stanford's GUP
a resident of Downtown North
on Jul 11, 2018 at 2:46 pm

Bottom line is that we need to stop building if we are to retain any quality of life. The city of Palo Alto has done a good job so far stopping more office growth. And if the resident inspired proposition gets passed in the November election, then this reduced office growth will apply city wide.

We need to stop the Stanford growth also. They are big enough. Only a cancer wants to grow forever and that is what Stanford has become to our quality of life.

Shut them down by writing to the Santa Clara Board of Supervisors and asking them to vote no on Stanford's GUP (general use permit).

Posted by jane
a resident of Evergreen Park
on Jul 11, 2018 at 3:33 pm

@Gale Johnson
"Annette always asks hard questions that I don't think CC members have even begun to think about."

There is a minority of CC members who do want to ask the hard questions, but this often conflicts with the agendas of the majority CC members who do not want these hard questions asked.

Unfortunately, the chair of the CC, both last year and this year, who run the council meetings and can permit who can speak, when, and for how long, have cut off those who want to ask the inconvenient hard questions by not allowing all council members to speak before the chair allows a motion. A motion once proposed and seconded prevents any comments at all beyond that narrowly addressed in the motion. Thus, where there is a conflict of opinion the minority council members are silenced. A very effective political tactic.

Previously, the practice was to allow at least one round of comments from ALL the council members before allowing a motion. and cutting off any further comments.

Posted by Marie
a resident of Midtown
on Jul 11, 2018 at 5:19 pmMarie is a registered user.

As bad as the impacts are of sufficient housing to house all new Stanford employees and students if the GUP is approved as proposed, the impacts of not requiring it, is worse as it will worsen the housing imbalance significantly. Stanford should be required to build enough housing within Stanford for employees and students generated by the GUP. If they don't want to build the housing, then don't hire the people or admit the students. This may sound harsh, but the consequences otherwise are horrendous.

Stanford must be required to pay their fair share for the infrastructure to support whatever expansion is approved.

Best would be if they scale back their plans, but if not, they need to pay for the infrastructure to support it.

Posted by Against_larger_Stanford
a resident of Mountain View
on Jul 11, 2018 at 8:27 pm

One question the community should ask more strongly is "Why does Stanford need to grow?" On their own website their answer is: "We live and work in an environment where knowledge is continually advancing. New technologies enable new fields of study to emerge and existing ones to grow. How we teach and conduct research is also rapidly evolving. Our academic and research facilities need to be updated or replaced to meet these challenges in real time." Updated or replaced does NOT mean more facilities. Many corporations update their office and lab spaces without increasing footprint. Stanford has so much money that they continue to build infrastructure without being a good steward (of course much of the money is by donors that insist that the only way they will donate is to have a new building named after them). The real waste is new 'inter-disciplinary' or 'multi-disciplinary' fields that somehow require more new space. In other words, someone in building A and someone in building B are going to work together, so why not make a new building C for them? I have literally talked to Stanford personnel that joked they didn't even realize they had multiple offices assigned to them in different buildings: one had three offices in three buildings assigned but was only aware of one until recently (and only uses one). Stanford has not put forth any reason they need to grow. Resist!

Posted by Annette
a resident of College Terrace
on Jul 11, 2018 at 8:36 pmAnnette is a registered user.

@Jane - thank you for posting the synopsis of the way the 2017 and 2018 City Councils have been led and the meetings conducted. Between what you correctly describe and the ridiculous, suppressive 60 second rule, challenge to the Majority's development-friendly agenda is quashed. What are they afraid of? Opposition can be healthy as it can lead to better conclusions. The CC is supposed to work for the betterment of the City, but this majority works for the benefit of those who support them and their own agendas. I call that conflict, but I am old fashioned about my expectations regarding civic service.

I also ask, are we better off for their leadership and the execution of their agendas? I don't see much in the way of improvement on the housing front. In fact, I see some very sad developments, increased demand, and momentum that will only make matters worse.

Everyone who is concerned about this should write CC and urge them to accept the change to the Comp Plan that the citizen's initiative proposes. We need a doubling of the allowed office/r&d development growth rate about as much as we need a hole in the head. There is NO demonstrated need for the growth rate in the Comp Plan, but there's potential for positive change by lessening it. We do need that.

Posted by Anonymous
a resident of Duveneck/St. Francis
on Jul 11, 2018 at 8:55 pm

I am concerned about additional traffic and impacts on our public schools that we, Palo Alto taxpayers, are asked to accept. I strongly feel Stanford should be held more accountable in ways that are meaningful to Palo Alto residents. This does NOT mean token actions that benefit Stanford instead of us! Some proposed things are confusing and may not really ameliorate the additional problems Stanford is creating locally. I want Palo Alto City Council members and our SC County representative to advocate for us! Start with a major schools impact fee to Stanford. Start also with looking at traffic from the perspective of EXISTING residents/local taxpayers and local merchants.

Posted by 16 yr resident
a resident of Old Palo Alto
on Jul 11, 2018 at 10:25 pm

I don't understand why stanford wouldn't be required to build housing for their planned expansion.

Schools, fire, police, medical, utilities etc are all struggling with housing costs. Some of the self proclaimed "older" commenters have to be blind not to see this. Even businesses (outside the largest tech companies) are struggling. Older residents reap the rewards of their land value but refuse to accept new modes of transport that come with the areas success. If the CC continues to dramatically miss their own housing development goals we will turn the mess we are in into community disfunction that leads to a crash.

Posted by Stanford's reputation
a resident of Community Center
on Jul 11, 2018 at 11:31 pm

My own reaction to Stanford's explosive expansion, accumulation of billions of dollars, and borderline lying about their control of traffic (no net new trips? yeah, right,--'net'achieved by not counting huge numbers of cars),
and manipulation of government processes, millions of dollars advertising for patients in newspapers, radio, and TV apparently to fill their over-expansion.

My opinion of them has changed from thinking of it as an esteemed university, into a greedy, metasticizing, voracious, developer. I even have an involuntary image of our President when I think of Stanford now.

Posted by Annette
a resident of College Terrace
on Jul 12, 2018 at 11:20 amAnnette is a registered user.

Webster defines quandary as a "perplexing situation or state: dilemma".

I don't think this is a quandary at all. It's a choice: does the County allow the university to expand beyond what it and Palo Alto can sustain, or not? To me, the answer is a simple "no" and the University should be required to scale back its plans. Significantly.

Both Stanford and Palo Alto have spent the last decade exhausting the area's capacity to adequately support and sustain development. Housing and traffic are the two most obvious indicators that we have reached (arguably exceeded) our saturation point. It's time for some moderation.

Posted by Stanford Just Needs to Do the Right Thing
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jul 12, 2018 at 12:07 pm

I see three big problems - housing, traffic, and schools. All three can be mitigated with money, of which Stanford has plenty ($24 billion in the endowment and swiftly growing). Joe Simitian needs to do his job - don't kow-tow, don't back down, don't let Stanford walk all over the community (which they'd be delighted to do - they literally don't care). It sounds like we need $200M for housing, up to $30M a year for schools, and some unknown number for Stanford to *actually* cut down on traffic.

Are they big numbers? Sure, but Stanford is enormously wealthy and only has one host town to take care of. Stanford, don't be cheap, short-sighted, and dumb. Get out your check book and do the right thing!

Posted by Stanford Just Needs to Do the Right Thing
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jul 12, 2018 at 12:50 pm

@Chris, I don't know what you are talking about. They already have started putting housing in the research park (University Terrace). They do it because they WANT TO, not because of any altruistic desire. It's virtually certain they will build more there over time. What problem do you think it solves?

My realistic, constructive solution is that they pay to mitigate the issues their proposed growth creates. When you are the biggest employer / landlord / property owner / hospital ower, etc. in the area, that's what you have to do.

Posted by Fred Balin
a resident of College Terrace
on Jul 12, 2018 at 5:23 pmFred Balin is a registered user.

Do the Right Thing writes:
"They already have started putting housing in the research park (University Terrace). They do it because they WANT TO, not because of any altruistic desire.”

Yes, but this is the first time Stanford or anyone else has built housing in Research (né Industrial) Park although it has been allowed by zoning for decades.

Why start via University Terrace?

As per a 2005 development agreement between the city and Stanford, the demolition of ~350k sf of commercial space on 17 acres in Research Park (1.8 on El Camino, 17 along “Upper" Cal Ave), would give way to 250 housing units (50 to 70 BMRs and the balance, “market rate”). Who could/would live in the market rate units? Stanford wold not reveal until 2014.

The agreement also allowed Stanford to build 300k sf of replacement commercial space in Research Park of which ~100k sf has been used. If/when the balance is applied, the overall jobs vs housing comparison for the deal will most likely be a wash.

The other major aspect of the agreement was the community soccer fields: The lease of 6 acres on the former “Mayfield School” site to the city ($1/yr for 51 years) and the fields' construction. Prime commercial location, except that it is comprised by close proximity to underground plumes from a Superfund site across the road.

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